Ren8, L360 is the 11" joist. The builder has not specified which 9" one we would use; I presume the heaviest. We do have laundry on the second floor, but I guess that's more of a constant vibration, not something which would cause a lot of bounce? The reason I'm considering this is to give us more room in our entry. If I have to do the height between floors with the 11" i-joist, then would have a 109" floor to floor distance. For this, I need 15 rises/14 treads on the stairs (14 rises would give me 7.79", too tall for the code's max of 7.75"). Using Ren8's formula, 15 rises and 14 treads should be R=7.26R T=10.3, leaving only 3'8" between the front door and the stairs. If I could have a 107" floor to floor, I could do 14 rises/13 treads, R=7.64 T=10, with a 14" shorter running, leaving 5' between the front door and stairs. I can push the stairs back without making upstairs bedrooms smaller (they are already at a minimum). While the 3'8 isn't the end of the world, the 5' entry sure would be nice, which is why I'm trying to get a handle on the difference between the i-joists. I really have no idea which is appropriate, and I don't know how I would decide unless I could find similar houses with each joist, obviously not really a possibility. Thanks for the thoughts. Here is a link that might be useful: Link with floor plans (stair rise/run shown is not ideal)

Weedyacres, I agree that a good tile installer does a dry layout first to assess the best way to install the tiles to create as little cuts as possible. If the tile installer would have started the diamond design at my door next to the rug area and worked his way forward so that at least the door area had tiles right up against it and most of the rug area did also, the window area would have no gaps and there would only be a 2" gap by the wall opposite the door. That gap would have been covered up by a 1 7/8th diamond cut of the tile in a few areas leaving the 1/8th width between the other tiles. The tile would have not fell out after being glued and having a quarter round on top. The installer started in the middle of the floor and then told me if he did not due the border I would waste so many tiles since he would have to put tiny pieces about 1/4th to 3/4th all along the edges. After he was done, I only saw spaces of 1 3/8th to 1 1/2 spaces at the door so he was wrong. He also forgot about the other wall on the other side of the door not having to have the tiles 1/8th from the wall since a quarter round would be covering the area. He tried so hard and I know I could have never cut those tiles so I feel very bad but in person, the problems were more noticeable. I also did not want a border in such a little area and I had shown him a picture of what I wanted and he told me 1/8th width was no problem for him with the spacers. I wish when the installer asked me where we should start the tiles, I wish I would have told him, let's lay them all out first and then we shall see how they fit and then I would have realized the tiles should start at the door. I was busy with ear plugs on trying to work but I could not work once he started the border since it was upsetting me. If I had a bigger foyer area, the border would have been nice if it was straight. Once the quarter rounds would have been put back on the sides of the wall, the tiles would have not looked centered anyway and the 3" wide X 12" boards would have not been the same size any more as on the other two walls without the quarter rounds. I now have no tiles and only cement floors blocked by gates but I could not let him do the middle foyer that had 4 doors since I do not feel he knew how to handle doors. Here is a link that might be useful: Album with some pics of the uneven grout lines mainly due to putting a border in that I did not want that created more cuts of the tile making it busier

I had this exact same issue when I started designing my kitchen a few months back. My island will also be 6.5' long, and I ended up drawing the setup in autocad with the dimensions I was interested in. I ended up settling on the configuration in the image I attached. The island is 6.5 long, and the pendants are 14" in width. I think ultimately there's no right answer in a vacuum, depends on the other elements in your kitchen. Our island sits prominently in the middle of the kitchen and is the focal point when you first walk in. Our cabinets are also very simple, done purposefully so we could go a bit more extravagant on the finishing details including islanding lighting, hardware, and faucets. We played around with lights bigger than these and it didn't look right. We also played around with 2 light setups and it felt off to me. Good luck with what you choose!

Thanks for all your input. I think I'm in a bit of a pickle. Ripping the first row (and/or the last row) doesn't make sense to me,...in my situation. I understand the part about making the first and last row equal for aesthetic, etc. From my starting wall: 1/4" expansion gap required + 24 rows of boards go in perfectly, BUT THEN I have 1-1/8" leftover gap at the other/opposite side of the wall (see first picture, with green circle). Obviously, baseboard thickness is not going to cover that 1-1/8" wide gap. Ripping the board means I have to do another row - 25th row. The row/board is 5 inches width. I cannot rip the 25th row/board into long strip of 1/2 inch each and use them for the 1st (starting) and last rows. That's too thin and skinny. That's my confusion. Am I not thinking correctly? I guess luck wasn't on my side regarding the dimension of the room....(almost made it with using/having 24 rows of boards). That 1-1/8" leftover gap pisses me off. If it were 1/4" or 1/2" leftover gap, then everything would have been perfect with having only 24 rows.